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BY OUR CORRESPONDENT
5 January,2007: US researchers have come
out with an astounding finding linking the
incidence of breast cancer and hormone treatment
for menopause and in women.
The incidence of all types of breast cancer fell a
stunning 7 percent in 2003 and rates of the most
common form of breast cancer dropped a startling
15 percent from August 2002 to December 2003,
researchers from the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
in Houston and other institutions reported.
Such a steep fall could well be due to the reduced
intake of hormone pills, they explained. The US
women by the millions abandoned or sharply cut
back their use of hormone therapy after a large
national study concluded that the hormones
slightly increased breast cancer risk.
This was the first such decline after persistent
rises for several decades and a leveling off from
1998 to 2002. The researchers estimate that 14,000
fewer women were diagnosed with breast cancer in
2003 than in the year before.But the decrease was
most striking for women with so-called
estrogen-positive tumors, which account for 70
percent of all breast cancers.
The biggest effect overall was seen in women ages
50 to 69. That is the group most likely to have
been taking menopausal hormones. In them, the
incidence of breast cancer, including the type
that grows in response to estrogen and the one
that does not, fell by 12 percent in 2003, the
latest year for which data is available.
The findings of the new analysis were supported by
a separate study in California. That study,
published in the Nov. 20 issue of the Journal of
Clinical Oncology, found an even bigger drop in
rates in that state and a correspondingly bigger
drop in hormone use starting in July 2002.
For many years hormones — which have been widely
used to treat the symptoms of menopause — had also
been hyped by overly enthusiastic doctors also
championed hormone therapy as a way to prevent or
mitigate heart disease, Alzheimer’s, severe
depression and urinary incontinence — none of
which turned out to be true.
Until 2002, as many as a third of American women
over age 50 were taking menopausal hormones. The
drugs could relieve symptoms like hot flashes, and
were thought to protect against heart disease.
Because the pills were known to slow bone loss,
some women used them to prevent osteoporosis. Some
women and doctors also believed, without any good
evidence, that the pills could keep skin youthful,
preserve memory and make women energetic.
However, these notions took a severe jolt in July
2002 when the Women’s Health Initiative data
indicated that Prempro was associated with a
slight increase in breast cancer and in heart
attacks, strokes and blood clots. The cancer kills
an estimated 40,000 women a year and any decline
in incidence can be important.
BY OUR PHARMA CORRESPONDENT |
